What are children learning from you?

“Children see. Children do” (video). If you haven’t seen this video by NAPCAN then I suggest you to watch it now before reading any further. In fact if you get the idea of unintentional teaching from the video, you don’t need to read any further. Others stay with me for a while.

Most of us relate learning directly with teaching. What is being taught is being learned. What is being learned is being taught. When the goal is learning, the focus becomes teaching. That’s why wherever there is a need for learning, we setup infrastructure for teaching. But do learning and teaching hold such a straight-forward relationship?

There are many things that children learn that are not taught to them intentionally and many times we do wonder from where do they learn such things – good and bad. The answer is that they are learning it from us. Yes, we are teaching them without knowing. This is called unintentional teaching.

Children don’t need to be taught everything. They are very observant. They learn things just by watching too. If you say sorry without being apologetic, or say thank you without being grateful, children learn to say these things without feeling regret or gratitude. May be you wanted to set an example for them to learn good manners and didn’t intend them to see through you but they do and they learn what they see.

Unintentional teaching puts a lot of responsibility on us towards our own behavior and character. It requires a paradigm shift in your thinking – from personality ethic to character ethic as Stephen Covey says. It requires you to investigate your own character. You are a learner as well as a teacher for your whole life, irrespective of whether you intend to be or not.

So, what are children learning from you? Watch again: Children see. Children do.

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